Brazilian Birthday Booze

It always surprises me how efficient citrus fruit are at cheering me up when it's cold and gray and -- shock, horror - I'm getting older.

This is The Brazilian Drink par excellence, and although everyone seems to have their own way to make it, there are a few rules that need to be followed, because limes behave slightly different from lemons in my experience, and because...well, I like rules.

My mother likes to make Caipirinha with lemons sometimes (pink lemons which we can find in Brazil -- so it doesn't really help us Dimwits much, but I digress...), but being the purist I am, I always make it with limes; to me, few flavours marry as well as these 4 ingredients which are:

1 lime per person (pp), with very thin, smooth skin

1 1/2 tbsp sugar pp

2-3 ice cubes pp

1 small-ish shot of Cachaça/Pinga (I use Pirassununga 51 brand but you can use any white, industrialized brand; stay away from the "aged" stuff, those are supposed to be had neat-YIKES)

Preparation:

• Remove skin from lime, every other "strip" (i.e. leave some on), cut into 4 wedges, remove that white "strip" from the middle, and put into cocktail shaker;
• Add the sugar to cocktail shaker and start to crush the bits of lime with the sugar (preferably with a wooden pestle or something similar; before I got that one you can see in the photo, I used a wooden spoon) until you get a thick-ish liquid;
• Add the ice, the cachaça, mix well, leave it for 2 minutes so the flavours can blend;
• Serve in a cold glass with the bits of lime and lots of ice.
• Enjoy it while taking a quiz on world politics.

Saùde!

PS: the same cocktail with vodka instead of cachaça is called Caipiroska; with rum - Caipirìssima.